“Greedy Lying Bastards”

A ‘first final cut’ of Craig Rosebraugh’s new film about the power of the oil industry, the global warming disinformation campaign, and the BP Deepwater Horizon oil blowout disaster was screened on September 13 at the international conference on Culture, Politics, and Climate Change in Boulder, Colorado.

I was interviewed for this film. The several minutes of the film dealing with the specific issues I raised are presented accurately and well in the version that was screened in Boulder.

What happens when one industry has too much power? Politicians become pawns. Laws are created and prevented. Regulations are bypassed. Information is controlled. Dissent is stifled. Our climate changes. And people die.

“Greedy Lying Bastards” presents a searing indictment of the influence, deceit and corruption that defines the fossil-fuel industry. From the Gulf Coast to the tiny nation of Tuvalu, from Nigeria and Uganda to Peru and Alaska, filmmaker and political activist Craig Rosebraugh documents the impact of an industry that has continually put profits before people, waged a campaign of lies designed to thwart measures on climate change, used its clout to minimize infringing regulations and undermined the political process in the U.S. and abroad.

From a statement by director Craig Rosebraugh on the film screened in Boulder:

This particular version of the film contains two related storylines, yet ones that we chose to focus on with increased specificity to the point at which we decided to make them into two separate films. The first film “Greedy Lying Bastards” is focused on the climate change denial campaign waged by the oil industry to ensure our energy policies are not modified in a manner contrary to the industry’s effort to maximize profits.

The second film, yet to be named, is focused on the Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent oil spill. Our film crew, along with myself, shot hundreds of hours of footage in and around the Gulf of Mexico during the last couple of years documenting the victims, both who were lost in the explosion as well as those who continue to suffer ill health impacts from the oil and dispersant that was deployed to hide it. This project will be finished and released late in 2013.

What links these two films together … is an industry, which has thrived in a world of deregulation and has earned record profits at the expense of safety protocols/worker safety, political corruption, and environmental devastation. The same reckless decision-making, which led to BP’s Deepwater Horizon explosion, also lies at the forefront of the continuous release of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere causing the warming of the planet.

The disparity between science, popular opinion and political action on climate change continues to be far and extreme. My hope is that with the revision of this film exposing the widespread and heavily-funded denial campaign, we may help allow the science to prevail and provoke political action to curb the warming of the planet.

“Craig Rosebraugh, a US filmmaker and political activist, has produced a feature-length documentary that demands to be seen,” writes Leo Hickman in the UK Guardian. “If the trailer and impressive roster of interviewees are anything to go by, it's likely to cause quite a stir.”

3 Responses to “Greedy Lying Bastards”

Your eco-fascist fantasies have been denied by free men and women around the world. We are unpaid and unafraid and we will not stop opposing you scum. Go ahead and comfort yourself with your fraudulent oil company conspiracy theories.

Rick documents what he says. Rick provides references. But they are too hard for some to follow.

Rick has many links on his posts. Real easy just click. You might just find out something you do not want to know, that global warming is real, it is man that is doing it and it is going to have bad consequences.

It's not a conspiracy, Mike. It's the natural behavior of, well... greedy lying bastards. They will continue to persuade themselves that putting off pipeline inspections is OK, that they don't need to listen to subcontractor experts telling them they need to proof-test the cement at the wellhead, that they can get away with defective blow-out preventers — in short, that they can always afford to cut corners because they can buy their way out of the disasters that result.

And, too often, thanks to the unwitting cooperation of people like you, they are right.

No, I don't think anybody is paying you to keep flinging your deluded outrage all over blogs from the New York Times to here. I just think you have a knack for shooting yourself in the foot. Only, for God's sake, you've got to wake up sometime!